Swasth India - Health for all

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Swasth India - Health for all

Mumbai, India
a
Organization type: 
hybrid
Project Stage:
Growth
Budget: 
$1,000 - $10,000
Website:
http://www.swasthindia.in/
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Swasth India is a social business working towards improving the health of low-income segments in urban and rural India.

Our Mission is “To ensure access to affordable and quality health services to 10 million low-income people by 2018.

Our mission is driven by the motto "Health for all". India's healthcare scenario has seen significant improvements, enhancements and innovations in the past few years along various dimensions - expanding network of private healthcare providers, a competitive pharmaceutical industry and dynamic health insurance products. We aim to extend these benefits (which, till now, have been accessible and affordable only to the high-income segments) to the low-income segments.

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

According to WHO, 32 million people above the poverty line go below the poverty line every year in India because of a health event. Preventing people from going into such poverty is a dire need of Indian society. <br><br> Swasth India has spent 3 years conducted extensive field research, healthcare delivery operations and healthcare financing to understand the health management needs of the low-income group segment. These operations and research have covered ~250 villages across 7 states, and urban slums inhabited a population of ~1 million people. Swasth India concluded that the primary causes of healthcare related destitution are: <br> <ul> <li>The overall system in financially inefficient, for example most commonly used drugs cost 25-30% to manufacture and another 10-15% to deliver to the retailer level.</li> <li>Unavailability of "fitting" financing options for healthcare results in very high out-of-pocket expenditures </li> <li> Unavailability of good quality low-cost primary health-care results in very high expenditure of secondary and tertiary healthcare.</li> </ul> <br>More detailed insights and learning for our experience can be found at: http://www.swasthindia.in/insights.php and http://www.swasthindia.in/learnings.php <br> Therefore, there is a need for a sustainable, scalable, high-quality and low-cost model for delivering healthcare to low-income group population in India.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

Swasth India has come up with a sustainable, scalable, high-quality and low-cost model for delivering healthcare to low-income group population. We operate healthcare centers as a one-stop shop for all health needs of a low-income group family. <br> In our model, families in the community are given free membership cards, which avails them: <ul> <li>consultation by a qualified doctor at Rs 30 </li> <li>drugs at a discount of 30-40% on the market price </li> <li>tests at a discount of 30-40% on the market price </li> <li>referral to our empanelled secondary or tertiary hospital, offering a 30-40% discount to our members.</li> <br>We have successfully operated this model at 7 centers operating in slum communities of western Mumbai, having covered ~12,000 people, without any compromise on quality. Also, we have accommodated all the necessarily equipment, inventory and staff for a center in a 150 sq-foot self-designed layout, resulting in lower rents. <br>The above services operate on a for-profit basis, giving the model sustainability. Services not having a business model operate on a not-for-profit model. For example, we conducts health camps funded by donations, for school-children, detecting frequent problems like haemoglobin deficiency and week eyesight. Free preventive remedies, such as iron supplements, are provided and results are followed up.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

There can be numerous examples of how the Swasth India model makes a difference to the community. For example, as our centers are a one-stop shop, our member families don't have to spend on pharmacies or pathology labs. Further, in cases like malaria, which are typically referred for hospitalization by other general physicians, are managed at our centers by giving necessary day-care such IV at the bedding facility at the center itself. Thus the annual costs of health-care for the entire family comes down by 30-50%. We have demonstrable cases in which the healthcare costs of our member families have come down by 30%. <br><br> Live statistics related to savings are available at http://www.swasthindia.in/status.php
Sustainability

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

The healthcare marketplace has many kinds of players: healthcare providers, insurance companies, drug manufacturers and suppliers, community aggregators like NGOs, government agencies, technical and medical educators etc. We see none of them as competition. We position ourselves as someone who implement models that can bring benefits of the services offered by these players to the low-income group segment in sustainable, scalable, high-quality, and affordable way. We have arrived at a model which involves operating the one-stop last mile delivery center, and therefore can be thought of as a healthcare provider. However, we do not perceive other providers as competition, and are always open partnering with anyone as long as the benefit reaches the end customer.

Comments

Great idea.

Hi,
The following Foundations focus their grantmaking activities on health: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (http://www.rwjf.org/applications/whatwefund.jsp), The Rockefeller Foundation (http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-focus), The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (http://www.avdf.org/FoundationsPrograms/HealthCare.aspx); (http://www.avdf.org/HowToApply/ApplicationProcedures.aspx), and Northwest Health Foundation (http://nwhf.org/focus_areas/)

Indrani Sharma's picture

Thank you for your participation in AFI Growth Prize Competition. We have a key question for you:  how does your business model allow you to profitably deliver healthcare at such low costs? How can you accelerate the spread of this innovation by scaling-up or replication, and how can you finance this growth?

Please post your response as comment here, before Dec 15, 2012 to be considered for final evaluation.

Sundeep Kapila's picture

We are able to deliver low-cost, high-quality healthcare due to 2 factors, which fundamentally cut down our cost of service provision:
1) Reducing inefficiencies in the healthcare ecosystem: We procure drugs directly from distributors, conduct most diagnostic tests in-house and provide all services under one roof, thereby saving on supply chain costs, and marketing/finder fee costs, the benefits of which we are able to share with patients
2) Use of technology: We use in-house developed technology back-end for all support functions. This enables us to reduce administrative costs through automation, reduce losses due to better cash management and inventory management and also ensures quality control, as our SOPs are integrated into our IT system.

We have planned 2 routes to accelerate spread of this innovation:
1) Supporting other organizations in healthcare: We have developed solid, low-cost back-end systems - drug supply chain, technology platform which enables all processes, in-house diagnostics - which can be provided to other organizations working in this sector for a fee (e.g. provision of drugs to hospitals, IT software to private doctors and nursing homes), thereby expanding our reach quickly.
2) Scaling-up organically, leveraging technology: We plan to scale-up to 60 Health Centers across Mumbai in the next 2 years, and believe that our strong backbone of supply chain, technology platform and in-house diagnostics, will enable us to accelerate scale-up.

We plan to finance our growth through raising equity capital

Let us know if any questions remain unanswered

To develop the rural health care structure, we have found multiple changes in health care industries. Swasth India is also one of them; basically the word "Swasth" origin from Indian language that means healthy or health. Under this program we have found multiple health care strategies due to which our rural health care formula would be produce better care environment.
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